


In His Wallet...

by Teeelsie



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: But a Little Bit of Angst, But with a happy ending, Character Study, M/M, Pre-Slash to Slash, Unrepentant Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-02-28 11:37:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2731052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teeelsie/pseuds/Teeelsie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I saw the excellent prompt below on tumblr with the tag that someone should do this for Danny and Steve – and I thought that was a great idea.  </p><p>"Describe the contents of a character’s wallet, purse, or bag. What personal effects or treasures do they always keep with them, and what items are more disposable or temporary? What does each item, or collection of items, say about your character?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Danny's Wallet

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't follow the prompt exactly, but close enough, I hope...

 

  

In Danny’s wallet, in the generic plastic photo holder that comes with every wallet, are two pictures of Grace: his favorite picture of the two of them together, from when she was 8; and a new one he adds every year as she marks another birthday. They sit back-to-back so he can flip them back and forth and show her off to anyone and everyone who is willing to look.

 

But sandwiched in between those photos, where no one ever sees, is a scrap of paper, two-inches square, folded in half so it measures 2”x1”. Well, that was the original size, anyway – when he had first put it in his wallet - now it’s a little bit bigger (2.5”x1.25”) because now it is encased in Mylar and the tape that seals it required there be a buffer edge. It’s been in his wallet for many years and Danny takes it out only very occasionally, to look at and rub his thumb over the image on the paper. He used to take it out more, but now… now he doesn’t need to as much, so when he does, it’s usually because he stumbles across it, and in those instances, when he takes it out and unfolds it, it always elicits a fond, sentimental smile.

 

It wasn’t always like that though. In 2011, Steve was arrested for the murder of Governor Jameson and he spent some time (too much) in jail while they worked to clear his name. It took far too long as far as Danny was concerned, and every minute of the time, Danny worried about how Steve, a cop, would survive another day. It was also during that time that Steve was away, that everything went to hell between him and Rachel, and Danny felt increasingly alone and adrift in Hawaii.

 

On one of those particular days (a Monday, Danny thinks he remembers), he was sitting in the waiting room of Steve’s attorney’s office hoping to get five minutes with the guy to check in about whether there had been any new developments in Steve’s defense. Just as he was called back to the office, he caught sight of one of those tourist magazines sitting on the table – the kind with the glossy photos of the endlessly beautiful sights on the Hawaiian Islands. The entire front cover was a photo of the petroglyphs in the Ko’olau Mountain Range, where Steve had taken him just a couple of months before (and where Steve had almost been killed falling off a cliff). Even though Danny had snarked at Steve about the rigorous hike that day (it really was just the way he was; he couldn’t help it), Danny understood at the time that it was a special place for his partner, and that for Steve to bring him there and show him the petroglyphs and talk about his father the way he did, said something about Steve and his regard for Danny.

 

Since then, when Danny thought of that day – and there were so many memorable moments from that day – his first thought was of the petroglyphs, and the images etched into the stone. Steve had said the stick figures of the people were symbols of the hunt, but Danny always thought of the men brandishing weapons as warriors, and the second he had set eyes on those images, he had equated them with Steve (though he’s _never_ told his partner that).  And from then on, Danny has always thought of Steve as a modern-day version of those fierce, ancient peoples. So when Danny saw the magazine, with the image of the petroglyphs on the cover, it struck a chord in him, and that evening, after he had chased every lead he could for one day, he drove straight to a drugstore and bought a copy of the glossy magazine.

 

Once home, he sat at his kitchen table and did a little paper-surgery: he carefully cut out a two-inch square piece of the heavy-stock cover of the magazine, capturing an image of one warrior with his weapon above his head. He looked at the fighter for a moment, rubbing his thumb over the image a few times before folding it in half and tucking it between the two pictures of Grace.  He wasn't exactly sure why he had done it - cut it out and kept it - but he also didn't really let himself think about it.  He just slid it into its hidden spot, and then got up and went to bed.

 

During the ensuing weeks, as Danny worried about Steve’s fate, he pulled that scrap of magazine cover out frequently, rubbing it lightly, and pondering the puzzle of Steve’s case. It wasn’t until Steve was long out of jail, but was gone and missing in North Korea, that Danny pulled it out and looked at the picture and realized for the first time that he was in love with Steve. It surprised him a little, but then, not really. It occurred to him, finally, that probably every time before that he had pulled it out and rubbed the image, he had been sublimating his feelings for Steve, and he almost laughed out loud at himself.  

 

Once he had that realization, it occurred to him that he should throw the thing away; it was a visible, and sometimes painful reminder of his ridiculous, unrequited feelings. But even though he knew it was silly and sentimental, he never could bring himself to get rid of it. After that, he tried not to pull it out as often, but he found he never could stop completely. Mostly, it came out when Danny was worried about Steve: when he disappeared looking for Shelburne; when he and Cath disappeared to North Korea again; when he took off to Afghanistan; when he vanished from his car off the side of the road; the too-many times he had sat by a sleeping or unconscious Steve in a hospital room. When he took it out when he was worried, he would touch the image, almost as though it was a talisman to be rubbed to help ensure Steve’s health and safety. Over time, he had almost rubbed the image right off the paper, and it became smudged and faded and thin.

 

But he also sometimes took it out when he was lonely; on nights when he indulged in his occasional bouts of self-pity after watching Steve leave with Cath, hand in hand, or arm in arm. Or later, after Cath, when he’d see Steve smile at a pretty girl, or flirt with a district attorney. He didn’t begrudge Steve what he had – he just missed it from his own life and knew he’d never have what the picture represented. On those lonely nights he would take it out and just look at it, never rubbing the image, for some reason.

 

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

 

His big mistake had been folding it. Actually, his _first_ mistake had been cutting the largest of the warrior images from the magazine cover; if he had cut one of the smaller images, he would not have had to fold it to allow it to fit in his wallet. But he had made that first mistake, and then the second mistake of folding it. And even though he was always mindful of its fragility and took great care with it, it was inevitable that the crease would wear through eventually, and after a few years, the paper did indeed split in two.

 

It happened on the seemingly-endless flight to Afghanistan, when Danny had surreptitiously pulled the square out of his wallet to rub the image gently. But that time, the seam finally gave way and the picture broke along the fragile fold. Danny’s heart pushed up into his throat – it felt like the worst kind of omen - his talisman was broken, and now its luck would be worthless. He tried desperately to rationalize that, of course, this piece of paper he had carried in his wallet for three years did not really have any magical powers, but his sense of dread and foreboding about what was to come only continued to intensify. Nonetheless, he continued to hold onto the two pieces of paper, and gently worried them all the way to his unknown future.

 

When they found Steve - and he was alive - Danny could hardly believe it; it seemed like an impossible miracle, given the broken-down condition of his only source of luck. Later, as Steve slept and Danny kept vigil by his bedside, he once more pulled out the two pieces of the picture - carefully, so very carefully - and barely touching them, he thanked every god he could remember from his World Religions class, that Steve had somehow survived yet another brush with death.

 

After they had returned home, as soon as he possibly could, Danny set out to restore the two pieces back into one. His first instinct had been to simply reach for some tape, but then he remembered something he had read once about tape being bad for paper and so he went to an art supply store and asked about the best way to preserve a fragile piece of ephemera. They showed him to where the supplies could be found and explained what to do, and that night he sat at his kitchen table once again and performed another act of paper-surgery.   The work was detailed, and his clumsy fingers were unused to such fine work; but he worked slowly and patiently, not rushing, wanting to make sure it was done perfectly.

  

He trimmed the edges a tiny bit – just a millimeter or so - to remove the fraying and give it a crisp line once more. He then carefully cut two pieces of Mylar, 2.5” x 2.5”, using a straight-edge and an exacto-knife, and put double-sided tape all along the perimeter of one square. He then set the two pieces of ripped magazine cover on that clear square, separated by a thin gap, and placed the second piece of Mylar over the top, sealing the small picture into its new protective case. Then he folded it again, exactly where the gap of space separated the two pieces, and put it back into his wallet between the pictures of Grace. It was a little bigger now, and a little snugger in its compartment, but it was worth it because it was well preserved and not in danger of disintegrating when he took it out and rubbed his thumb over it.

 

He kicked himself a little for not doing it sooner – before it had ripped and he had rubbed the image nearly off - but he didn’t beat himself up too much, because he had never regretted having the paper in his wallet or taking it out when he needed to. Mostly he felt fully satisfied that at least now he knew it would last for much longer.

 

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

 

Danny rolled out of bed. “I’m gonna shower… how ‘bout you order a pizza, babe – I’m starving.” Danny called over his shoulder as he padded across to the bathroom.

 

Steve smiled, enjoying the view of Danny’s nearly-perfect ass moving away from him. “Yeah, sure… Ham and pineapple?”

 

“You really think that joke never gets old, don’t you?” Danny griped, poking his head back into the bedroom, but he couldn’t stop himself from smiling at the sight of Steve’s ridiculous grin.

 

“It never, _ever_ will, Danno!” Steve laughed as Danny flipped him off and turned on the shower.

 

After making the call, Steve joined Danny in the shower, the two of them indulging a few more minutes of tongue wrestling before Danny reluctantly extricated himself so he could go call Grace. Now that she was several time-zones away at college, they had to schedule fairly precise times to talk or they would miss each other too often.

 

Steve took his time, luxuriating a bit in the hot water and steam. Danny had taught him a few things about accepting some of life’s little pleasures, and eventually, as with most everything about Danny, Steve gave in and enjoyed the ride. Long ago, Danny had tried to convince him of the beauty of a lingering shower, and to prove his point, Danny had joined him in the stall and done some very wicked things to Steve. After that, Steve could see the appeal, and since then, he found he indulged in much longer than his traditional three-minute shower. Sometimes Steve lingered specifically in the hopes that Danny might appear, and as often as not, if Danny was around, he did.

 

Danny wasn’t coming back today though, so Steve eventually pulled himself out of the shower, threw on shorts and a t-shirt, and went down to the kitchen to make a quick salad to go with their pizza. He could see his husband sitting out on the lanai talking to Grace, something that always made both of them smile: Danny, because nothing made him smile like Grace; and Steve, because nothing made him smile like seeing Danny smile.

 

The doorbell rang and Steve opened the door for the pizza guy, pulling out his wallet as he did. “Hey… how much do I owe you?”

 

“$24.25”

 

Steve looked in his wallet and found only a twenty-dollar bill. “Hang on one second, will ya?” Steve asked and trotted to the back door.

 

“Hey Danny, I need $10 for the pizza!” he yelled.

 

“In my wallet – in my pants upstairs,” Danny hollered back.

 

“One more sec!” Steve called to the pizza guy as he ran upstairs to the bedroom where Danny had hastily discarded his clothes when they’d tumbled into the room earlier. He grabbed Danny’s wallet out of the pants pocket and rushed back downstairs, pulling a ten-dollar bill out as he descended. He stuck the open wallet in his mouth to free up his other hand to dig the $20 back out of his own pocket and then handed the money over and took the pizza box. “Keep the change,” he garbled around Danny’s wallet and then headed back to the kitchen where he set down the box and finally took the wallet out of his mouth.

 

Oops… Steve saw the teeth-marks he had left on the wallet and began to caress the leather to try to rub them away. As he worked at it, the edge of something a little sharp caught his finger and he looked to see something poking out from between the pictures of Grace that Danny always carried with him. Steve pulled out what looked like a scrap of paper encased in some sort of plastic. He looked at it with curiosity and unfolded it, then looked with slight confusion at the image that revealed itself. It was a picture of one of the petroglyphs in the Ko’olau Mountains; Steve recognized it immediately. But this particular image was not an actual photo taken on one of the many occasions he and Danny had hiked up there; rather, it appeared to be cut from a magazine, and it was obviously old and extremely worn. It looked like it might have been there for a long time – years maybe – but in the 6 years he and Danny had been together, he’d never seen it – though, he didn’t typically dig around in Danny’s wallet, either.

 

His first reaction was to keep it out, and ask Danny about it when he came back inside. It was odd and curious, and Steve was itching to know the story behind it (he had never noticed Danny stash things in _his_ wallet). He looked up and saw Danny stand up from the chair on the lanai – a sure sign that he was wrapping up his conversation with Grace – and then he looked back down at the plastic-encased picture in his hand. He looked again at Danny (who saw him and smiled and gave a little wave), and Steve had a sudden, visceral understanding that this image had something to do with Steve himself, and instinct told him not to ask Danny about it. His gut hollered to him that whatever this was, it was deeply personal, and if Danny had wanted Steve to know about it he would have shown it to him.  Steve understood.

 

And even though he didn't know _exactly_ what the image meant, Steve found that a rush of warmth and abiding affection for Danny came over him as he gave the picture one last look and then tucked it back into it's hidden home in the wallet.  

 

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

 

Danny sits at the kitchen table with his old wallet and a new wallet in front of him. The new wallet was a gift from Steve, who had been harassing him for weeks that he needed a new one – the old one virtually falling apart in his hands every time he took it out. Danny has always been slow to buy new wallets when he needs them; he likes the old leather as it ages and smooths to fit his pocket and body. But the time really had come, since the seams are tearing and things are beginning to fall out now and then.  

 

Danny carefully takes each item out of the old wallet: his drivers’ license; his credit cards; his Medicare card; the photo sleeve with the ancient picture of Danny and Grace from when she was 8, and on the flip side, a picture of Grace and her daughter taken on Danielle’s 10th birthday. Danny smiles as he looks at the pictures, turning the photo sleeve back and forth to look at the two images, amazed at how much his granddaughter looks like his daughter at the same age.  

 

As he takes the photos out so he can put them in the new photo sleeve – one that isn’t tearing along the bottom and side – he also pulls out the Mylar-encased image that he has carried for almost as long as he has carried the picture of Grace. He opens the folded picture and smiles as he runs his thumb across the image, thinking about the man it represents.

 

Before he can tuck it all away again, Steve walks into the kitchen, wet from his morning swim. “Hey Danno,” he says as he bends to give Danny a quick kiss on the top of his head.

 

”Morning,” Danny replies, smiling up at his husband and reaching out to grab his hand and squeeze as Steve passes by.

 

“What’s that?” Steve asks, obviously looking at the picture in Danny’s hand.

 

Danny hesitates for a few seconds before he hands the image to Steve. “It’s you, babe,” Danny says, his eyes twinkling as he smiles at Steve.

 

Steve takes the picture in his hand and looks at it. He remembers finding it in Danny’s wallet years ago and wondering about its significance, but knowing he shouldn’t ask. He hesitates a second, unsure of what it means that Danny is showing this to him now after so many years, or how he should respond to the revelation of the secret artifact.

 

“Yeah, I hate to tell you, _babe,_ but I think you might need to get your glasses checked… ‘cause that looks nothing like me.”

 

Danny smiles. “I know... but it always made me think of you. I’ve carried it around for years…” Danny stops, feeling a little embarrassed.

 

“Why?” Steve asks, genuinely curious, wanting to understand Danny's thought process behind this memento. 

 

"Ah..."  Danny says as he scratches the back of his neck, feeling a little foolish. “I don’t know, really. I cut it out of a magazine when you were in jail after Jameson because it reminded me of you and I've carried it since then – like a… uh, I don’t know, exactly. It’s stupid, I guess. I mean, we’re here, together… it’s practically disintegrated… I should probably just get rid of it.”

 

Steve looks at the image for a few more seconds, marveling at this new understanding that his husband is maybe more like himself than Steve ever realized; that Danny has carried the picture with him since the first year that they met, because it reminds him of Steve.   He finally hands it back to Danny and his heart sings a little when he sees that Danny doesn’t toss it in the garbage; instead he slips it back between the two photos of Grace as he begins to put everything into his new wallet.

 

When Danny glances up at Steve, he is staring at him with such affection that it actually makes Danny blush, even after all these years.  “What? Stop! It’s nothing… it’s just… a thing. I’ve had it so long, I just can’t get rid of it now!  I’d feel… I don’t know… naked or something without it.”

 

Steve understands; he smiles and grabs Danny’s hand, pulling him up and into an embrace, his eyes prickling just a little bit. “Hhmmmm... love you,” he says, but it comes out barely more than a whisper.

 

“Yeah, I love you too, you big goof.”


	2. Steve's Wallet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much thanks and gratitude to my fast and amazing beta, Kippy Vee!

 

 

Most people who know Steve, believe him to be a pragmatic, logical person. There have really only been a few people in his life – ever - who have known that, in fact, at his core, Steve is deeply sentimental. When he was a child, his mother knew; of course she did, she was his mother. She noticed how he would hold on to small treasures and hide them where he thought no one else would see. But, he was a child, and his hiding places weren’t very sophisticated, so she would find his mementos pushed to the back of his drawers as she put his laundry away. It made her smile and she would ruffle her son’s hair and kiss him lightly and tell him he was a sweet boy. Later in life, when they reunited, she probably thought all of that sentimentality had been drummed out of him; she was wrong about that, but he would never let Doris see the adult version of that side of himself.

 

Mary knows too. They’ve never talked about it really, and Steve isn’t quite sure how she knows, but she’s always said things to him like “Oh, you’re just an old softy” and “I know you, Steve.” He supposes it’s just sisterly intuition, and he appreciates that she never says things like that in front of other people – as though she understands that it is not something he wants advertised - so he’s OK with the fact that she knows his secret.

 

He doesn’t think his father ever understood; he wasn’t a particularly sentimental man himself, so he didn’t model the behavior for his son to copy. And it wasn’t the kind of personality trait that John McGarrett would zero in on when assessing someone’s character. Were they honest? Were they brave? Did they have integrity? These were the kinds of things he looked for. But sentimentality? No way. It was probably because his father exemplified the strong characteristics of a ‘man’s man’, that Steve tried to hide this part of himself; he never wanted his father, who he respected, to think less of him.

 

There was one girlfriend who got a glimpse of it once. He was 17 and infatuated and he had sent her a letter, filled with silly words of love and sentiment. She had liked it (of course she did – every teenaged girl wants to get a love letter), but she had also gently teased him for it. Steve had pinked-up, embarrassed, and had never written another love letter.

 

Danny knows… now. And Grace, of course. But he thinks it was several years into their acquaintance before Danny had figured that out about him. (He’s actually very wrong about that – Danny got an inkling of this fundamental aspect of his partner’s personality when they first met and Steve gave Danny the gift of the weekend at the Kahala, so he could get Grace out of his crappy apartment and take her to swim with the dolphins. And his suspicions were confirmed the day Steve took him to see the petroglyphs in the Ko’olau Mountain Range and talked about his father taking him there as a kid. But Danny is pretty emotionally astute, and he got that Steve hid this part of himself, so he never harassed Steve about it – too much.)

 

Grace just seemed to innately see him for what he was. Or possibly, Steve thinks, it was simply because she was pretty young when they met, and she just didn’t understand that not everyone is naturally soppy – maybe she just assumed he was. Either way, almost from the time they knew each other, she would say or do things that led him to believe that she thought him to be sentimental.

 

So, that’s it. Four people (five if you count the girlfriend… and, well, maybe six, because sometimes he thought that Kono could see through him as well) in his entire life who actually knew and understood this fundamental truth about Steve: he _is_ an old softy and ridiculously sentimental – a big marshmallow, filled with testosterone.

 

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

 

When Steve left home as a teen – when his father sent him away - he had to be circumspect about what he brought with him; he understood he would have limited space and limited privacy at the Army-Navy Academy to hide his treasures away. He made a deliberate decision to leave behind most of his childhood treasures, but he wanted to have some keepsakes to remember the people and things that meant the most to him. He took a few precious minutes from the short time that he had before his departure to sit down and carefully think about what those items should be.

 

Of course, he wanted some photos, so he went through the family photo albums and chose three of his favorites: one of his mother laughing with her hair swirling around her head on a windy beach; one of him sitting on his mother’s lap frosting Christmas cookies when he was 5; and a picture, from the year before, of him and Mary sitting on surfboards off the beach in their yard. (He was angry enough at his father that he deliberately did not choose a photo with John McGarrett in it.)

 

But he wanted some more tangible items as well, and he knew exactly what of his mother’s he wanted to carry with him. So he went to his parents’ room and dug through her drawer until he found it: a head scarf that, when he envisioned her in his mind’s eye, she was often wearing. It was bright and colorful and it reminded him of her omnipresent smile.

 

When he thought about Mary and what he wanted to remember her by, he also knew exactly what item he wanted: a small, flat, drawing of blue waves rendered in hard plastic, hanging from a thin piece of leather. One day, a couple of years before, Mary’s friend had brought over a package of ‘Shrinky-Dinks’ and they had drawn small pictures on flexible plastic and put them into the oven. A short time later - _voila_ – miniature, hard-plastic versions of their artwork emerged.

 

Mary had drawn three perfect, rolling waves, complete with variegated blue colors and whitecaps. She had had the foresight to punch a small hole in the top of the middle wave so that she could string a long strip of leather through it to make a necklace out of it. She never actually wore it as a necklace though; instead she had hung it from a corner of the bulletin board in her bedroom.

 

Steve had been incredibly impressed with the waves when he saw it. The colors were complex and beautiful, without looking cartoonish, like a colored piece of plastic often might. Mary had always had a bit of an artistic bent, something Steve had been a little envious of, as he didn’t feel he had any talent in that particular area. From the moment he saw her creation, he had coveted it, even though he never said a word.  So the day before he and Mary were to leave Hawaii, he stole into her room when she was busy somewhere else, and took it from her bulletin board. He quickly returned to his own room and stashed it in the furthest reaches of his duffle bag.

 

Later, as Mary was packing, he heard her moving furniture around in her room, and then she appeared at his bedroom doorway, asking if he had seen her waves. Steve feigned ignorance, saying he didn’t even know what she was talking about, and Mary stormed back to her room to ransack it again. Steve felt a little guilty about it – he knew that she also loved that necklace – but not guilty enough to give it back. After all, Mary would carry her talent with her, so it was Steve who really needed it in order to better remember her.

 

When he thought about his father, Steve thought about how frustrated and angry he was about being sent away. So he went back to the photo albums and pulled out another picture: this one of him and his father in front of the petroglyphs in the Ko’olau Mountains. He remembered with relish how he could now beat his father to the summit, so the only memento Steve brought of him was one of himself besting his father at something.

 

The only item he brought to remind him of what would soon be his ‘former’ life in Hawaii was the high school letter he had earned for football as a sophomore. He was proud of the letter, and it made him feel strong and fast and a little bit important.

 

He eventually left with one more thing that became a sentimental treasure to him as well, though he hadn’t planned it. Just before he was to get onto the plane that would take him away from his home, his father took him aside and asked him to put out his hand. When he complied, his father reverently placed his own father’s Pearl Harbor Service Ribbon (awarded posthumously) into Steve’s palm. He told Steve that he had treasured it his entire life, and now he was giving it to Steve to treasure as well. The last words John had for his son were an order, of course… He told Steve to make them both proud, and then turned and walked away. As angry as Steve still was at his father, he treasured the gift above all of the other things he carried with him. He held the symbol of his grandfather’s service and courage tightly in his fist all the way to his new home, and thought about making his father and grandfather proud.

 

Once he arrived at the Army-Navy Academy, as he unpacked, he set his keepsakes aside in a small pile. When he was done, he took his mother’s head scarf and placed everything in the middle, tied it up into a secure bundle, and then placed it in the back of his sock-drawer. And that was how he stored his treasures until he left there.

 

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

 

Two years later, when he was soon to depart for the Naval Academy, he thought about his bundle of keepsakes. He opened up the scarf for the umpteenth time to look through the items that he treasured so deeply. He considered the unknowns about the Academy – who his roommate would be, and whether he, or the upperclassmen, would allow him the privacy he had managed at the Army-Navy Academy; everyone had heard the stories of the hazing that could go on there. Steve wasn’t one bit worried about any physical tests he might be forced to undergo, but he did worry that someone might find the bright scarf and ransack its contents.  

 

He also considered what he knew would be coming after he graduated from the Naval Academy. Years of being moved from ship to ship and base to base; he could be deployed almost anywhere in the world.  He would have limited space for personal possessions, and ample opportunity for things to be lost along the way. Carrying a scarf full of mementos would not be realistic in any scenario he could imagine for himself, so he thought deliberately about how he might manage to keep his precious possessions with him. The answer came to him one day when he reached into his back pocket to take out his wallet. As he opened it and pulled out a couple of bills, he took note of the various empty compartments, and the solution to his problem was suddenly clear.

 

There were, of course, practical issues to deal with: there was no way that all of his treasures would fit into his wallet in their original form. But while Steve was indeed sentimental, he was also extremely pragmatic, so he knew he could make it work.

 

The photos were easy – yes, they had to be trimmed a little to fit in the plastic photo sleeves, but that was okay. He had to remove the leather string from the plastic waves, but once done, it slid easily into one of the compartments. The scarf and the Pearl Harbor Service Ribbon required more manipulation. Neither could fit into his wallet in their original proportions: the scarf was huge when folded and the pin on the back of the Ribbon made it far too three-dimensional.   In the end, he simply got out some scissors and cut a small swatch of the scarf – about 6”x4” – and then folded it twice. It was still a little bulky, but it fit in there just fine. For the Service Ribbon, he borrowed some wire-cutters and simply snipped the back pin off of the decoration. Once done, he was also able to slide it into a compartment.

 

So Steve’s wallet became the place where he carried all of his sentimentality because it was the safest place he could think of. And because of all the mementos he stored in his wallet, Steve always kept the other ‘wallet-y’ things to a minimum: his drivers’ license or ID; no more than two credit cards; and a little bit of cash (one reason why he often didn’t have enough bills on-hand to pay the bar tab), but all in all, it was a good system. Yes, it made his wallet a little bulky, and yes, it caused some wear and tear on the items, but Steve found that he very much liked carrying these things around with him, instead of just knowing that they were in the back of a drawer.

 

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

 

Over the years, some items came and went from his wallet – because, Steve was sentimental, yes – but he also knew when he no longer needed to hold onto a thing anymore. His high school letter was the first item to be dismissed – it had never actually made it into the wallet. By the time he made the switch to the wallet-system, he was accomplishing so much more, both physically and mentally, that the letter seemed trivial by comparison.

 

There was also the paper napkin from the restaurant he and his date went to the night he lost his virginity (he had to go back afterward to get that). He carried that for a couple of years, until the event had lost its significance in the big picture of his love-life. And the logo cut from the top of the letter from the Navy, informing him that he had been accepted to the Naval Academy; he carried that until it was replaced by the one from the letter informing him he had been accepted into the SEAL program. That was discarded and not replaced with anything after Freddie died. For a while there was also the boarding-pass stub from his first (and very memorable) R & R trip to Thailand; but then there were other, equally memorable trips down the road, so he successively kept - and then tossed - one after another of those, until he grew up enough to understand that they were not the really important things in life.

 

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

 

Some of the more important things in his wallet were removed over time as well. After Freddie didn’t return from their last mission together, he took Freddie’s SEAL Trident and brought it to Kelly. He was stunned when she completely rejected it, unable to see through her grief to recognize how significant it was to her husband. So Steve took the Trident and removed the pin backing, making it as flat as he could (this time he was mature enough to take it to a jeweler to have it done carefully and professionally, so as not to cause any undue damage). As he slipped the Trident into his wallet Steve smiled at the irony of how he had accused Freddie of being a ‘sentimental son-of-a-bitch’ when he had gotten Kelly’s name tattooed on his forearm. He carried the Trident until Freddie’s funeral, when he offered it to Kelly again (having taken it back to a jeweler to have the pin restored). This time, to Steve’s relief, she accepted it. He had nothing to take the place of the Trident in his wallet, but he realized that he had found closure and he didn’t feel compelled to carry Freddie with him anymore.

 

Of the original items in his wallet, the piece of his mother’s scarf and the picture of her on the beach were angrily thrown in the garbage after Doris turned out to be alive after all - and he never once regretted it. But he was self-aware enough to know that he would probably regret it if he threw away the picture of him and Doris with the Christmas cookies; regardless of what Doris had done, it was a happy memory that Steve had cherished from his childhood, and it was okay for him to keep that.

 

The things that didn’t make it into Steve’s wallet told their own story as well. For instance, it probably spoke volumes that, despite how much Steve really did care for Cath, he never added anything of hers. He actively thought about finding something now and then, but the fact that he had to think about it at all meant to him that an item didn’t belong. With every other thing in his wallet, he simply instinctively knew it belonged, without having to think about it. So nothing of Cath’s ever joined the other mementos.

 

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

 

When Steve returned to Hawaii and was going through his father’s things, he pulled his HPD ID out of his wallet and put it reverently into his own, carrying it with him from that day forward. He had come to regret his immature choice as a teenager, so carrying the ID was a bit of penance for Steve – though it was no real hardship.

 

By far, though, the largest collection of items in his wallet associated with any one person, belong to Danny.

 

By the time Steve met Danny, his wallet was already stuffed fairly full with things. In truth, the bulkiness of the accessory was the primary reason why Steve so often didn’t seem to have his wallet, and Danny ended up picking up the tab; it was so thick that it was a bit uncomfortable to sit on, so he would often pull it out of his pocket and shove it in a drawer or the glove box of the car.

 

His initial meeting with Danny had ignited something in Steve that seemed to want to compel him to start stashing items relating to his new partner. It was strange; he’d never felt quite so driven to collect things before. He held off for a long while, persistently resisting the urge and questioning for the first time his instinctive pull to add something to his wallet. He doubted his intuition because he somehow felt that it couldn’t possibly be appropriate to be saving things that he associated with this loud, abrasive guy from New Jersey who he had known for such a short time. Still, there were a few things that he felt compelled to pick up and almost hide away: a slim piece of shell Danny had picked up and then dropped the first time he came to Steve’s back yard; a coaster from a bar after a particularly amusing night out; the key to one of Danny’s crappy apartments that he never gave back; he even thought about cutting a piece from one of Danny’s ties when Danny was staying with him for that short time. Ultimately, none of these things made their way into Steve’s wallet, even though at times he could hardly stop himself. He wasn’t even sure what the push-and-pull over these things was all about – or at least, he didn’t want to examine it too closely. Eventually, it got to be a habit to _dismiss_ his instinctive tendency to reach for Danny-related items; the thought still occurred, but his hand no longer reached out to take.

 

Grace actually made her way into the wallet well before Danny. One day when Danny had picked Grace up from school and brought her around to the office for a short time, she had just gotten her school pictures. She pulled them out to show to Steve and asked if wanted one. Of course he did, he had said, and he watched as she carefully cut a wallet-sized photo from the sheet and handed it to Steve. Steve made a show of pulling out his wallet and putting it into one of the plastic sleeves and Grace had beamed at him. A furtive glance at Danny caught him beaming as well. After that, every year, Grace would make a point of giving Steve the newest photo and Steve always made a point of putting it front-and-center in his wallet. But while he loved these photos of Grace, he never considered them to really be part of his collection of treasures, because they were never hidden.

 

But Steve couldn’t hold back the tide forever, and eventually the day came when he had to grab something meaningful about Danny and tuck it into the wallet. The day after Danny and Rachel’s custody order was modified, and it was definite that they would be staying in Hawaii, Danny brought Grace by the house and she gave him a picture she had drawn of the three of them – Grace in between them, holding both of their hands. She had drawn them standing on the beach at Steve’s house; he knew it was his beach because the two wooden chairs were visible off to the side.

 

Something about that picture made Steve’s throat tighten and he could barely get the words out when he thanked her. He set the picture on the table instead of immediately sticking it on the refrigerator (as he typically did) because he knew - instantly – that he could resist no longer and that this picture would be going into his wallet. When he glanced up at his partner, Danny was giving him a peculiar look and Steve understood that he was wondering why it wasn’t being hung with the rest of his daughter’s fine works of art. But Steve couldn’t explain and the moment got a little awkward, until Steve suggested that they all go out to dinner to celebrate.

 

Later that night, Steve took out his wallet and then took the picture Grace had drawn and folded it four times, until it was small enough to fit where it now belonged. As he worked, he thought about how it had almost made him physically ill to tell Danny that maybe Las Vegas would be a good move. But he had felt like it was something he had to say, so he forced the words from his mouth to release Danny and make things easier if the unthinkable happened and his partner had to leave. He hadn’t meant it one bit, of course; he desperately had wanted Danny (and Grace) not to leave Hawaii - not to leave him. So the picture, now securely in his wallet, felt like it belonged because it embodied the magnitude of his own relief at the judge’s order.

 

The paper was a little bit bulky, to be sure, but Steve pressed the creases hard to make it as thin as possible. He knew he would have to be thoughtful about how often he took it out to look at it because folded paper was very fragile, but he could live with that. A while later, on one of the rare occasions that he opened the picture, it occurred to him to take a picture of the picture, so he snapped one on his phone and then he looked at it much more frequently.

 

That was the only thing Steve tucked away in regard to Danny for quite a while. He continued to resist his urges toward all things Danny-related and tried to find something of Catherine’s to stash away, but ultimately he failed in both regards.

 

Then, the week before Christmas after the autumn from hell (the one when Danny lost Matty and Steve almost lost his mind), Steve was at Danny’s house one night, helping him wrap gifts for Grace. At one point, Danny had his hands full of curling ribbon and so he asked Steve if he would go to his closet and grab another roll of paper. When Steve opened the closet door, the first thing his eye spied was a sweater. But not just any sweater: it was the sweater that Danny had been wearing when Steve awoke on a gurney in Afghanistan; the sweater that Steve had never seen Danny wear again because no one wore sweaters in Hawaii; the sweater that had become inextricably linked in Steve’s mind to his increasingly strong feelings of affection toward his partner.  

 

Before he could stop himself, he had grabbed the sweater, ripped the label from the back, and returned it to its place on the shelf. He did it all so quickly that he wasn’t sure if he had damaged the sweater or not; he hoped not, because he really wanted to see Danny in that sweater again someday. He jammed the label in his pocket, grabbed the wrapping paper and went about the rest of the evening. When he got home that night, he felt embarrassed and guilty for what he had done; he hadn’t ‘stolen’ anything since he had taken Mary’s waves as a teen. Nonetheless, he pulled out the picture Grace had drawn for him a couple of years before, slid the label between the folds, and returned it to his wallet.

 

When he looked back on it, that incident – that label - seemed to mark a turning point for Steve. It was when, he realized in retrospect, he first began to admit that his feelings for Danny were… more. And though it would actually be quite a while longer before he and Danny consummated a physical relationship together (key card from the hotel in Kauai – which will never be discarded like the virginity-napkin), he saw that the slow dance of the last leg of their courtship began when Steve ripped that label from Danny’s sweater. With that irresistible rending of the cloth, Steve finally began to acknowledge what had been building since the first day they met: he was in love with Danny.

 

Now, counted among the other keepsakes in his wallet are some of the things he treasures most – like the piece of a coaster (cut to fit in the wallet just like a credit card) brought home from a bar the night that Steve and Danny had finally confronted their feelings for each other and talked about moving things between them in a new direction. And the matchbook cover (just the cover) from Side Street, brought home with him the night he finally got his shit together and proposed to Danny. And the airplane boarding-pass stub from the first time he traveled to New Jersey with Danny and met the rest of his family. Steve had been terrified about that, but the entire Williams clan had welcomed him so warmly, that it was spectacularly, emotionally overwhelming – and Steve could now say that he loved each and every one of them. And, of course, an always-updated picture of Grace, her husband and daughter (replacing Grace's school picture), and an always-updated picture of Mary and Joan (which had bumped the childhood picture of Steve and Mary on the surfboards from the wallet).

 

But not all the memories found in the wallet are happy: there among the rest of the items is a slip of paper that reads “Discharge Instructions”, cut from the top of some pages many years ago. Danny’s wounds had been grave, and Steve had sat vigil for several days while they waited to see if he would survive at all. And then once he had actually turned the corner, his recovery had been horrifically grueling, so to finally – _finally_ – actually receive those discharge papers, had been such a relief that Steve couldn’t _NOT_ save a reminder of how close they had come, and how lucky they were.

 

The last few things in his wallet are from his team. When Kono came to the decision that she needed to put her children first and left the dangers of 5-0 to raise her family, she had given Steve the St. Michael medal that Danny had given to her several years before. Kono placed it in his hand with a seriousness in her expression, telling him that since it had come to her from Danny, now she wanted _him_ to have it. Later, Steve slipped the medallion from its chain and put it into his wallet. He was especially pleased that the memento had double-meaning, representing Kono _and_ Danny.

 

When Lou retired, Steve carefully snipped the name badge from his tac-vest, trimming it down to just ‘Grover’, and wedged it into a vacant spot.

 

The day Chin left Honolulu to become the police chief of Hilo, on the Big Island (because it turned out that you _could_ get lucky enough to find a second person that you love that much, and Chin had found her there), he left a small memory card on Steve’s desk with a note to “please read.” Steve slipped the card into his phone and opened the document, finding a long, heart-felt letter, in which Chin expressed his thanks and deep and abiding gratitude to Steve for believing in him and giving him another chance at a career in law enforcement all those years before. Steve’s eyes welled as he read the letter through, once, and then again. After he finished reading it for the second time, he ejected the memory card from his phone and slipped it in among the other treasures from his team.

 

 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

 

_…Steve smiles and grabs Danny’s hand, pulling him up and into an embrace, his eyes prickling just a little bit. “Hhmmmm... love you,” he says, but it comes out barely more than a whisper._

 

_“Yeah, I love you too, you big goof.”…_

 

 

Steve eventually breaks the embrace and looks at Danny. “I’ll be right back,” he says, as Danny looks at him quizzically. Steve goes to their bedroom, grabs his wallet, and returns to the kitchen where Danny is just finishing up organizing his new wallet. Steve sits down next to his husband and sets his wallet on the table.

 

“You finally going to show me what you’ve been carrying around in there all these years? I swear, you’re like a squirrel with its cheeks all crammed full of nuts!” Danny isn’t completely unobservant; he had noticed almost immediately that Steve’s wallet was bulkier than most. Through the years, he’s caught hints of some of the things in it as well, but he didn’t know what most of them meant. He never pried through Steve’s wallet or pressed him for an explanation. Steve carried a lot of baggage in his life – Danny had always known that – and he supposed that the odd collection of items that he had seen glimpses of now and then were part of the package. They were Steve’s way of coping with all the bullshit that life had thrown at him – much like Danny’s picture of the petroglyphs. So he figured that Steve would tell him if he wanted to, and if he didn’t that was fine – just because they were partners and married didn’t mean that Danny had to be privy to every one of Steve’s thoughts and emotions.

 

“If you want to see…” Steve replies, a little hesitantly.

 

“I’d love to see, babe. But don’t feel like you have to show me.”

 

“No, I don’t feel like I have to. I’ve been carrying this stuff around for a long time, too. I should have shown it to you... I don’t know why I didn’t. I wanna show you now.”

 

“Okay. Have at it…”

 

One by one, Steve removes each item and tells Danny the story behind it. Danny smiles at the story of Mary’s waves and almost cries when Steve talks about the photo of his father and the guilt he felt in retrospect for choosing it, especially after his father had given him his namesake’s Pearl Harbor Service Ribbon (which had been set reverently on the table). Danny has a hard time keeping his mouth shut when Steve takes out the photo of himself and his mother; Danny’s anger on behalf of his husband is still as fresh as the day all the shit came down with Doris. In turn, he feels a little ping of schadenfreude when Steve explains how he had thrown the other items away long ago.

 

Danny touches his former 5-0 teammates items with a pang of nostalgia – it had been a long time since the five of them had all worked together.  Danny’s eyes light up at the sight of the St. Michael medal, and when Steve tells him how he infers double meaning onto it, Danny smiles with fondness at his partner.

 

Steve tells Danny stories of _some_ of the things that had come and gone from his wallet over the years - and they laugh together at the virginity-napkin story - but in truth, he can’t even remember many of them anymore, because they didn’t have lasting importance as the remaining mementos do.

 

Steve has been talking, telling stories, and in turn, Danny has been asking questions for an hour or more, and there is a small pile of items on the table. They look at the photos of Grace and her family, and Mary and Joan, and smile together about the happy times they represent. And then Steve pulls out the remaining items from his wallet, not telling any stories about them, but just setting them together in a neat row. Danny looks wide-eyed at the items, understanding instantly that they all related to him somehow, even though he has no idea what most of them are.

 

Steve explains in reverse-chronology, what each item is: the discharge paper; the boarding pass; the matchbook cover; the key card; the piece of coaster. When he gets to the sweater label, he hesitates, still more than a little embarrassed about vandalizing Danny’s clothing all those years ago. But Danny laughs and laughs, and tells Steve that he had been completely mystified about what the hell had happened to his sweater – that he had pondered it, literally, for years (off and on) - and never could imagine how that had happened. By the time he finishes, Steve is laughing hysterically too, both of them with tears running down their faces from the mirth of it.

 

When they finally calm themselves, the last item lays between them on the table.

 

“What’s that?” Danny asks, very curious by now.

 

“It’s the first thing about you I put in my wallet. Go ahead, open it,” Steve urges, himself feeling nervous for some reason.

 

Danny picks up the paper and unfolds it very carefully – it is clear the page is brittle with age and over-use. When he gets to the last fold, he hesitates; partly in anticipation and partly because he is a little nervous about whatever it is that is clearly making Steve nervous.

 

When the picture is revealed, Danny sucks in a surprised breath and shoots a startled look at Steve. He had immediately recognized the picture; Grace had drawn it for Steve and given it to him with great excitement when they had found out that Danny and Grace would be able to stay in Hawaii. Danny had been confused when Steve did not put it up on his refrigerator as he had done with every other piece of art that Grace had ever given him. In truth, Danny had been a little hurt (and probably his daughter was too). When Grace had first shown him the drawing, Danny’s heart had melted just a little bit. He knew by then that he was in love with Steve, and Grace had managed to capture Danny’s deepest desires in the picture – he and Steve and Grace – a little family of their own. So when the picture disappeared, never to be seen again, Danny took that as indication that Steve was uncomfortable with the content; that he did not see the two of them that way and never would. It was probably one of the reasons that it took so long for him and Steve to finally figure things out between them – because Danny had thought Steve had no interest and so he dismissed the subtle signals his partner eventually began to give him.

 

“You remember it?” Steve asks.

 

“Yeah, of course I remember it. Grace gave it to you after the custody hearing. You didn’t put it on the fridge.”

 

“No, I… wait, did you think I didn’t like it? ‘Cause I loved it – completely – so much that I knew I had to put it in my wallet and not on the refrigerator with all the other stuff.”

 

Danny just laughs a little to himself. No way is he going to tell Steve how he had misinterpreted his gesture all those years ago. “No, I knew you must have loved it – I mean, how could you not?”

 

“Right… exactly!” Steve says with a smile.

 

“Do you think, maybe instead of putting it back in there, we could frame it and hang it on the wall somewhere?” Danny asks. “I think it would be kind of nice to see it all the time.”

 

Steve’s smile lights up even more, his eyes twinkle with delight. “Yeah, Danno, I’d like that, too. How about I take it to the framers tomorrow?”

 

“Great, then what do you say after that we go for a hike?” Danny asks, thinking of the slip of Mylar-encased paper in his wallet, and the photo in Steve’s. “I think I know the perfect place…”  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone was trying to keep track, here is what was in Steve's wallet at the end of the story:
> 
> *Picture of Steve and Doris (in photo sleeves)  
> *Plastic waves  
> *Picture of Steve and John at petroglyphs (in photo sleeves)  
> *Pearl Harbor Service Ribbon  
> *John McGarrett's HPD ID (this would sit like a DL or CC in a slot)  
> *Grace's drawing of Steve and Danny and Grace  
> *Label from Danny's sweater  
> *Part of a coaster, cut to the size of a CC and in a slot  
> *Key card from hotel (also sits like a DL or CC in a slot)  
> *Matchbook cover from Side Street  
> *Airplane boarding-pass stub  
> *Slip of hospital discharge paper (1”by 6” and folded)  
> *Picture of Grace’s and family (in photo sleeves)  
> *Picture of Mary and Joan (in photo sleeves)  
> *Kono’s St. Michael medal  
> *Scrap from Grover's tac-vest  
> *Chin's memory card
> 
> I know it's a lot, but I think it could fit... most of it is slim and would fit into prescribed wallet spaces (photo sleeves, CC slots, etc.) - but, yes, that's what makes it bulky and uncomfortable for Steve to carry!

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make me happy! 
> 
> And thanks for reading!


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